Avatar : The Void Chronicles
by Black Star5
Summary: The Avatar is to keep balance in the world. When he disappeared for 100 years, something dark was planted in the world to upset that balance. But they're fools to think it's over. Pairings will be cannony goodness. Story will be good to the cannon.
1. It's Been Two Years

Hello and thank you for clicking to read my fan fiction. ^_^- It starts kind of difficult to understand but I promise ten or so chapters are already finished so it won't be long until it gets cleared up. This fiction takes place roughly 2 years after The Last Airbender ended. I'd also like to say, before we get started, that if you don't like cannon pairings, this might not be the story for you. I'm going to make this as "realistic" and "cannon" as possible because it's those things that made me think of the idea for this story. Thank you.

That being said, there will be spoilers if you haven't watched the series.

I don't own Avatar the Last Airbender or any branch there of. All properties from here forward belong to their respective owners.

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It didn't seem fair. That was the only way to say it. The injustice in the world somehow spiraled around her like everything else seemed to. A swirling vortex of pain. It hadn't been so strong when the Avatar had been missing… she'd actually been able to leave this place for a small time. A very short time in comparison to her banishment here, but it was better than to never have lived outside at all. But as soon as he'd returned… his bright light once again banished her here.

…Stupid light. Stupid balance. Stupid Avatar…

She wanted to be happy too. Then she began thinking about the only joy she had in the depths of the dark emptiness she was locked in.

…the seeds she'd planted… to get herself out… and the sweet, searing knowledge… that they were finally starting to grow.

But all she could do now was watch from the spirit world while they took root.

* * *

Aang sighed as he saw the red dressed hawk come to the window. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy going to see his friend Zuko… it was that he wished it was usually under different circumstances than it was. Zuko had taken a running lunge at peace. The rest of the world was slowly starting to crawl to it, but there were still rough patches. Grudges. Negativity. Pride. Scars from this war that ran deeply and would take time to heal.

Aang had been trying to settle back into the nomadic life he'd once loved. But being summoned for these peace talks and treaty conferences every few weeks was weighing on him. That and there had been a new pressure put on him.

He opened the scroll to see if Zuko would press that subject again. His eyes glazed over the note that seemed a copy of countless others he'd received. There it was. Right where it should be. Final paragraph.

"I'd like you to please reconsider your refusal to use Spirit Bending again."

Aang sighed. He understood where Zuko was coming from. He knew that Zuko wanted to believe that it would change something to take away someone's source of negative energy. But Bending wasn't the problem. Taking it away… wouldn't fix Azula. Azula had to accept and deal with her own negativity. Taking away her bending would only make her bitter. Aang was sure of it.

Besides… since she'd arrived in Boiling Rock, she'd not caused any trouble at all. She seemed to have lapsed into a depression. She didn't talk. She didn't come out of her cell. She stayed there, staring up at the wall, almost in meditation. Zuko sent a warden just for Azula to watch after her. He hadn't wanted her to rot away in the cell; she was still his sister. It wasn't hatred that filled him now so much as pity.

Aang thought back to the sentencing two years ago. Two years, he wondered. It had been two years since all of that. It was crazy… So much had changed and yet nothing had changed. The world still turned. People were born. People died. Aang knew it would be this way. He returned to his nomadic roots to see to it that it did.

The date on the letter was in a week. Aang wasn't surprised to see that the meeting would take place away from the Fire Nation. Zuko felt that people were uncomfortable with returning to the fire nation after all that had happened, so there was a rotation to the meetings. Water, Earth, Fire, Air. This time it would be in the Southern Water Tribe. The last meeting had taken place at the Northern Air Temple.

Aang looked over at Appa and Momo. "Hey guys. Looks like we're going to see Katara." He smiled. It had been so long. He wondered how she was doing as The Water Master of the Southern Tribe.

* * *

That's the end of the opening chapter. I hope you're not too confused yet.

Just to mention, there will be OC type characters later, but they won't really interfere with the cannon-y goodness and I hope that you'll be pleasantly refreshed at how un-Mary Sue/Gary Stew they are.

Please review. Good or bad. I don't know unless you say.


	2. Trying to Move Forward

I've decided that unlike most of my previous stories on Fanfiction (dot) net, I'm going to make these chapters very small and character or event centric. That way, each chapter will have a main character and a piece of the story. I'll try not to do too much back tracking. Since it's hard to stick to one character or setting the entire time, when you see a line, it means I've jumped from one person to another. Either because one part was too small for a chapter on its own or because the two are linked somehow.

I'd like to thank you again for reading this fanfiction. Being that it is a fanfiction, I own nothing but the storyline. Enjoy.

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Katara smiled at her young pupils. Today was their turn in the Southern Water Tribe Bending School she'd created. There still weren't a lot of water benders yet, but since she was the most experienced, she felt that it was her job to prepare them and teach them how to use their abilities to help the tribe. She had different methods than Sifu Pakku had when she'd first been taught.

Rather than saying, "Only these will learn this and only those will learn that," Katara had decided everyone needed to know a well rounded course of water bending forms and techniques. Since healing was not as dangerous as some other forms involving pointy shards of glass like ice, the younger ones would start with healing. It was good for teaching control and about the body, which would prove uSiful in every day life.

One of the children, a young boy named Dai with blue eyes and black hair clipped short, raised his hand eagerly.

"Sifu Katara! When will we be done with the healing exercises?" This sent up a chorus of "Yeah"s and "We wanna learn how to fight!"s and "Like you did with the lighting girl!"s. Katara fought back an exasperated look. She had wondered often if it was a good idea to become a Sifu at all with those rumors circulating. She didn't want to teach a fighting school.

She put a finger to her forehead where the pressure was starting to build. Wasn't the whole reason they ended the war so that benders wouldn't have to use their powers against other benders to try to kill them? So that there would be peace? Spirits! Why, everyday, was she plagued with endless questions about when she would teach the techniques she'd learned, even those she never admitted to knowing, to an apprentice.

Katara started the young benders on healing exercises again, muttering something about lack of discipline to which she received groans. While they were working, she took the moment to contemplate her situation.

It wasn't just the students pushing her to teach stronger bending offense. Elders of the tribe and those who'd been injured or lost someone in the war were pushing her to reveal such things as blood bending. Katara still was unsure how anyone had found out that she could. Sokka was loose in the tongue… but he wasn't that stupid. The only others who knew were in other nations at the moment. Katara couldn't figure it out. It was as if someone were trying to sabotage all the work she'd done to try to restore peace in the village. And not just her work, Aang's work too.

Katara and Aang had agreed that while they loved each other there were more pressing things at hand. They were secure in their feelings for each other. They didn't doubt that someday, at some time, they would be together. But today wasn't that day. Katara still had strong ties to the Southern Water Tribe. Also Aang's avatar duties had only just begun. But there wasn't a day that she didn't think about him. He dropped by as often as he could. Every few months he'd make a trip down to see her. He frequently sent letters and gifts. Things to let her know he was thinking of her.

Their relationship was comfortable. That made her happy. What worried her was that the Southern Water Tribe needed something big to open their eyes to the fact that the war was over and that they should let it go, not stir up more animosity by paranoid requests for techniques that should have never been learned in the first place.

The students noticed it before she did. When they stopped their exercises to stare at the window she raised an eyebrow and turned to look. She smiled when she laid eyes on a red clothed hawk with a yellow ribbon tied to it's right foot. She couldn't help the small smile that took over her face as she slowly took the message from the hawk. "…he's coming back." She smiled to herself.

* * *

Thank you for reading. I hope it's not putting you to sleep yet. Next chapter will be more interesting I think. This one was more or less catch up with Katara chapter. Next chapter we catch up with the new Fire Lord.


	3. The Ashes of Peace

Welcome back and thank you if you're keeping up with the story. I appreciate it more than you could guess.

For those of you just joining us (and who haven't read previous chapters, because I know some of you don't) we've come a long way since the final days of the Fire Nation War. It's only been two years but peace and rebuilding are underway. However, it seems that there is someone in the spirit world who doesn't care for these things and who might be set up to sabotage all of it. In the mean time, there's a meeting scheduled to continue peace talks...

Hosted by Fire Lord Zuko.

I don't own anything pertaining to the original work this fan fiction is based off of, but I hope you enjoy it in any case.

Zuko looked over the agenda for the meeting that he'd drawn up himself based on the previous meeting's notes he'd gotten from a scribe, one of many that always attended these conferences. The list was long and detailed. It was also full of dangerous topics to discuss as a group. Especially a group of differing minds who wanted different things for different countries. Many thought that the Fire Nation needed to be taught a lesson for what they'd done. A permanent lesson. What Zuko had agreed to so far had shown the Fire Nation's willingness to humble itself, but still the people of the other kingdoms sought more payment, more retribution. Zuko realized that soon they'd have to reach an agreement or there would be more trouble. The Fire Nation still had it's pride, and Zuko knew there were people within it who thought that the war should have continued until the end. He'd kept them quiet so far, but keeping this peace was growing weary on all of them. Zuko folded his arms and continued glaring at the scroll. Despite how stressful it was, his mind still had other things on it.

Zuko had badgered his… Ozai…he had badgered Ozai into revealing in detail what had happened to his mother. But it had been a dead end. Ursa had been banished, but even Ozai didn't know to where. Zuko could no longer bring himself to call the man father. He'd discovered too much in the time he'd been Firelord to accept the man as he was. Zuko knew that even now, Ozai was keeping himself entertained with the idea that there were probably more secrets and more pain that he'd caused that Zuko didn't even know about yet. Hadn't even scratched the surface of, yet.

Finding a military base where they were brainwashing prisoners much the way the Dai Li had in the earth kingdom… cruel torture chambers to make those who were weak talk… Slave camps… SLAVES! Zuko felt his blood boil. He'd found the "training ground" on one of his father's maps and thought perhaps that it might be a source of information. It was information, but the kind that turned ones stomach. Children that had been rounded up after raids and attacks were tested for bending, and the ones who were not benders were deemed useful as workers. Those who were benders were either put to death or imprisoned. Zuko wasn't even sure what the sheer numbers were, yet. There had, apparently, been no call to keep track of the numbers or where people had come from. Why would there be? Ozai was sure he'd win the war and conquer the planet.

Zuko now had a group of ambassadors trying to figure out where all those children belonged. It was taking a while. Some of them were very young when they were taken. Most didn't have families to return to, which also made Zuko wonder what his father was thinking taking in the slaves to begin with. And that most were girls bothered Zuko on another level that he didn't want to think about.

Needless to say, Zuko had not been to see his father in quite a while. He thought to himself that perhaps the last three months without visitors would do him well. Perhaps another three would cure him. Zuko was beginning to think it wouldn't matter. That the man would rot in that cell. Mostly this thinking was from the fact that Ozai still wore his damnable smirk whenever Zuko came to see him.

"How's your mother, Firelord Zuko? I hope she's well." He would taunt. It was more than the young Firelord could stand.

He nearly jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Have you heard a word I've said? You've been glaring at that scroll for almost an hour… Aren't you going to come to dinner?"

Zuko's gaze softened before he ever turned to look at Mae. A small trace of a smile played on his lips. "Sorry, Mae. Were you waiting long?"

"No. Heh. I am not going in there to face those ambassadors without you. It's boring enough as it is." She stopped just before they reached the door. "When are you leaving?" The stiffness of her shoulders spoke of the tension that her monotone voice would never reveal.

"Probably at the beginning of the week." He replied. "I'll need to be there to greet everyone."

"…how boring…" She sighed with her face turned away from him.

"I know. You'll just have to entertain yourself by ordering some servants around until I get back." He absently played with her hair. It had gotten even longer. If she let it down, it would sweep the floor when she walked.

She whirled around to look at him, frustration straining her voice. "…why can't I just go with you?"

His face was full of understanding but concern shown behind his eyes. "…The war is over, Mae… but that doesn't mean it's safe. I would feel much better about going if I knew you were safe in the Fire Nation. Here in the palace is where people are most loyal to me and to the nation. Beyond the nations boarders, we've already seen that people do not welcome us warmly. People are already demanding outrageous things of us… I wouldn't be surprised if someone thought to try to take you hostage and…"

"You've been around your father too much." Mae grumped in her monotone voice. "I know that some of those rock-for-brains Earth Kingdom ambassadors are calling for a bigger sacrifice from the Fire Nation but really… do you think they'd chance war again to get it?"

"I do." His answer was swift. Her question had barely left her mouth when he responded.

Mae gasped at the sheer certainty of the reply. The look in his eyes was neither fear nor paranoia. It was as if he were looking out over the horizon and seeing storm clouds, studying them and trying to see which direction the wind would blow them. It was clear then to Mae.

"…you think we deserve this…" It wasn't meant to be accusatory when she formed it in her mind, but the way she said it made it seem like it was.

"No… that's not it…" Zuko immediately replied. "I don't know everything yet. People are afraid to come forward with information because they know what they did was wrong… but I've found out some things that I haven't told you yet. Big things. Things that I can fully see people wanting retribution for… and coming here to get it. I've kept it quiet for that reason. But I'll tell you when I come back from the Southern Water Tribe and this treaty meeting."

Mae's eyes shown with a new worry. A concern for Zuko's wellbeing that he could read fairly easily. He put an arm around her shoulders, guiding her down to the dining hall. "It'll be ok. I just don't want anything to happen while I'm not here to protect you. And besides that… I called an old friend of yours to keep you company while I'm gone."

Mae let out a rare chuckle. "Let me guess…"

"WEEEEEEEEEEE!" Came the hyper active explosion from the training hall on Kyoshi Island. The sound was so dense that the ocean waves rippled backwards for a moment. "I'm gonna see Mae again!"

Suki turned to look at where a warrior with a long braid was half in the air as she bounced up and down from foot to foot, her braid bouncing behind her like a long tail.

"Mae and Zuko! Mae and Zuko!" She began chanting, flinging the scroll like a banner as she began swinging from tree branch to tree branch then somersaulted onto a roof, cart wheeled to the end of it, back flipped off and landed like a cat before doing a handstand and walking up to the training hall where Suki was wiping her forehead from a long training session.

"Old habits die hard huh?" She asked sarcastically, raising an eyebrow.

"Suki, look!" Tai Li held out the scroll for inspection by her senior officer. "I've been requested for special mission! Security Detailing for the Firelord's Fiancée!"

Suki took the scroll and read over it. "… Hm… it says that you need to head out as soon as possible. He's sending an airship to come and get you. You'd better get ready." She continued reading down. "…Seems I'd better get ready too… The rest of the Kyoshi warriors have been requested for Security Detailing also."

"Really? That's great! Where are you guys going?"

Suki looked up over the scroll. "The Southern Water Tribe." Tai Li tried to read her expression.

"…Isn't that a good thing?" She asked. "I thought you would be about as happy to hear that as I was to hear that I was going to see Mae." She tilted her head as if giving Suki a new perspective would make her easier to read.

"…It's been a long time." She said mysteriously. "It's too early to say if this is good news or not."

Sounds like trouble in paradise, doesn't it? Sorry to say you won't find out next chapter because I'm going to introduce a new character next chapter. See you soon.


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